What is a CESMII Affinity Group?

When tasked with the major challenge of Digital Transformation, it’s extremely valuable to network with your peers, talking with those that are in various stages of adoption, exchanging ideas on what works and what doesn’t.  We are also focused on the democratization of Smart Manufacturing, making sure that opportunity is available to all businesses, the small and medium businesses and not just largest companies in industry.  Small and medium businesses may not have the personnel or infrastructure to learn all that needs to be done. 

Affinity Groups offer networking opportunities for manufacturers in vertical markets, or with common applications.  Affinity Groups provide a safe haven for members to bring their abilities, share concerns/business problems, outline their capabilities and interests, and to develop a plan to engage CESMII resources & strategies as needed. In addition, the conversations and discussions maximize opportunity to solve real Smart Manufacturing problems for members within that industry sector or technology horizontal.

Working with Smart Manufacturing Innovation Centers

Affinity Groups partner with the CESMII national network of Smart Manufacturing Innovation Centers (SMICs) to demonstrate the solutions that can be used by industry today. In addition, the Affinity Groups will work with individual members to provide inputs to CESMII strategy & capabilities. These Affinity groups are structured to ensure mutual ROI and improve ROI to members that contribute their time.

Affinity Groups will encourage multi-regional participation to optimize development efforts; provide forums for collaboration and the sharing of skills and expertise.  The CESMII involvement in Affinity Groups lets us better align the Institute Roadmap with membership needs.  The Affinity Group will have a defined set of success measures that will drive its purpose statement.

Current Affinity Groups

We have launched three Affinity Groups to gather data about the member experience, value to the member, value to CESMII. These lessons learned will help CESMII makes changes as appropriate and launch new Affinity groups in a structured approach.

 Affinity Groups listing:

• Aerospace Affinity Group
• Small - Medium Sized Manufacturers Affinity Group
• Food Beverage and Consumer Product Goods Affinity Group

Affinity group meetings are held monthly, online through the benefits of Zoom technology, and managed by CESMII staff. 

To Learn More about our Affinity Groups

Please Contact:  Dale.turner@cesmii.org or Shekhar.chandrashekar@cesmii.org